Highly active metal–acid bifunctional B–doped radial channel silica supported Ni2P for efficient hydrodeoxygenation performance

[Display omitted] •Metal-acid bifunctional B-doped radial channel silica supported Ni2P catalyst was prepared.•Open radial channels of RCSN promote fast mass transfer and shorten reaction time.•Open radial channels of RCSN are conducive to efficient utilization of active sites.•B doping contributes to the improved acidity by forming the trigonally and tetrahedrally coordinated B in RCSN skeleton.•Ni2P/RCSN-B shows high HDO activity (96.5 %) and target deoxidation products yield (91.5 %) within 1 h. Upgrading bio–oil into high–quality hydrocarbon fuel through hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) is highly desirable. Here we describe a method for fabricating a Ni2P metal–acid bifunctional catalyst (Ni2P/RCSN–B) supported on B–doped radial channels silica by a facile anion–assisted hydrothermal method. The results showed that the doped B was entered into the skeleton of RCSN to form the trigonally and tetrahedrally coordinated B species, providing the adjustable acid sites, which is responsible for the high target methylcyclohexane (MCH) product selectivity. And the radial channel pore structure promotes the efficient exposure of active sites, accelerates the mass transfer and leads to highly dispersed small Ni2P particles. Importantly, the kinetics study proved a high reaction constant for the constructed Ni2P/RCSN–B catalyst as compared to that of Ni2P supported on traditional SiO2 support, indicating the important role of the radial channel pore structure on shortening the reaction time. Benefit from the optimized acidity, rapid mass transfer and highly dispersed small Ni2P particles, Ni2P/RCSN–B achieved superior m–cresol HDO performance with HDO activity reaching 96.5 % and the selectivity to MCH reaching 91.5 % within 1 h. There is no doubt that the combination of Ni2P and RCSN–B opens up a new idea for preparing high performance HDO catalysts.